Jingle All the Way

Anticipation for jumping on our bikes and doing the "Jingle Ride" is mounting (no pun intended).  It is a long wait until spring when the next "Tweed Ride" is scheduled so when another special ride is announced, the excitement builds quickly.

I heard from a contact of mine that Coreen of the fine bicycle blog "Breaking Chains and Taking Lanes" has organized a winter ride to enjoy some of the more spectacular Christmas lights strung up in our fair city.  She even plans a half hour seminar on winter cycling to give fair weather riders a chance to experience winter pedaling.

While at "BikeWorks" yesterday, I tried to come up with a practical method of lighting my bike with Xmas lights.  I asked Brett who is always in the shop if he had any ideas and he suggested that I contact Chris Chan who for sure will have his bike decked out in holiday lighting.  Chris is the wizard of bike lighting and gives a course at "BikeWorks" on two wheel chariot illumination.

I did manage to come up with the "Jingle" part of the ride.  I remembered riding my Trek mountain bike within the bowels of the Bulldog Tunnel on the Kettle Valley Railway and coming across a cyclist who had strapped bear bells to his pedals so that they made a constant ringing/jingling sound as he laboured uphill to the summit at the "Paulson" .  I figured I could take the two bear bells off of Furry Lewis and attach them to my winter bike pedals and at least make some sort of effort to celebrate Xmas cycling.

I went to the dollar store to find those illumination sticks, bracelets or necklaces.  You know - the ones that glow in the dark.  I couldn't find any - they must be out of season.  Why they would only be for sale in the summer when the days here are longest is beyond moi.  But I did discover an idea for decorating my bike - turning it into a candy cane by wrapping white paper or cloth around the frame and then running a long red ribbon around that.  I'll let you know how it goes...

I've got a Crush

It never seems to fail that when you're on the bicycle trail that the thought of one particular food or drink takes hold.  On this year's trip it was pie (see Sept.7th blog) from the Copper Eagle Cafe in Greenwood B.C.  On this same trip when we met Butch Cassidy and he described a beer, burger and fries for 10 bucks (see August 12th blog) we couldn't wait to get to Christina Lake and chow down on that delicious sounding food.

Special Edition Crushmobile

I had to laugh when I found an abandoned orange bike in my neighbourhood and upon closer inspection discovered that it was a Hires Root Beer bike and Orange Crush labelled bike.  Now this is an older Raleigh mountain bike and it weighs a ton.  While it is in good shape, I discounted it as a winter bike since the 19" frame is too big for my stubby inseam.

Found abandoned

What made me laugh was the Orange Crush decal (as some people say dee-cal) which reminded me of one of our Kettle Valley Railway bike tours where my friend Roy and I got the image of an orange crush stuck in our heads.  It was undoubtably hot as Roy loves to cycle in hot weather.  The idea of an ice cold, sweet carbonated drink burning the back of our throats took hold of our imaginations and with each pedal stroke that took us closer to Chute Lake where we anticipated rewarding ourselves with such a fine concoction the notion lodged more firmly in our minds.

The dee-cal

And sure enough, when we arrived in Chute Lake they had ice cold cans of Orange Crush just waiting for us to quaff.  You see when we're on one of our extended bike tours, it doesn't really matter what we eat and drink.  Just climbing Anarchist Mountain required 5,000 calories so eating Rock Creek Cheese buns and drinking Orange Crush pop seemed a reasonable and delicious way to replace that burned up energy.

We didn't have to stop and think about buying a case of Orange Crush when we were grocery shopping for the return trip.  Stuffing the cans into a large cooler full of ice and glugging them down on the way back home gave us a constant reminder of our recent trip and a little walk down memory lane since both Roy and I drank this pop when we were kids growing up.

A Sore A**

On the MS bike tour there is a team called "So and So and the Sore Arses" and after winter cycling on the crappy seat that came with my winter bike, I feel I could join that particular team. Within minutes of riding, I could feel pressure not on my man bits but a piece of anatomy my daughter tells me is the coccyx.



Coccyx



Trusty Spiderflex





Another view of a great seat

 I vowed that before my commute this morning, I would install my trusty Spiderflex seat that has easily 10,000 miles of comfortable riding under its belt (so to speak).


Crappy seat

And before you go - make a selection from the newly installed buttons down below:  FUNNY  INTERESTING   INFORMATIVE   MEH   ?

Lycra Spandex

As hard as it is to believe, some cyclists don't like Lycra Spandex!  It is no stretch to say that there are two very distinct camps when it comes to cycle wear.  Personally, I love the stuff.  I'm not pulling your leg when I say that I have on occasion grossed out my co-workers when they've seen me wearing the stuff as I prepare to leave work.

It can be argued that Spandex has very practical applications - like how it helps the downward leg to flex down and spring back up during a pedal stroke.  Or on a long ride where loose, flapping shorts will chafe your legs from constantly rubbing against the skin whereas with Lycra Spandex that never happens.

Mark Beaumont, the man listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as having cycled the world in record time, wore Lycra Spandex cycling shorts for his whole trip (he did wash them occasionally).  You see all the Tour de France riders wearing form-fitting cycle wear so there must be something to it.

However, the contingent of cyclists in this town who frown on wearing Lycra Spandex for cycling feel so strongly about not wearing this material that they have named a popular cycling/jogging trail "Lycra Lane".

Tire studding tips

The first shot of the video shows how I screw the studs (5/8" sheet metal screws) into the knobs of the tire from the outside first.  This accomplishes two things:  it creates the correct angle for the stud to protrude from the tire and it makes an easy-to-find starting hole for when you screw the stud into the knob from within the tire.

As you can see from the last shot, the studs, while not absolutely perfectly aligned, are for the most part, in two straight rows.

You may also note that I'm wearing mechanic's gloves to protect my hands from the very sharp points of the studs.

Expect the Unexpected

It was with the best intentions that I wanted to bring my summer commuting bike home from work.  The temperature hovered at minus 10, and for the most part the roads had been cleared of ice and snow.  Perfect conditions to ride a bike home that didn't have knobby tires.


Uh oh


Within half a block I discovered that my tires, which had been leaking air for some time, needed some more air.  I pulled out my handy compressed air pump and filled both tires which helped considerably.  Except for hitting some brown sugar near 109 Street, I felt I had made a clever decision to ride home on an out-of-season bike.

Being eager to get this bike home (the Schwinn MOAB), I wasn't fully prepared for the windchill that assaulted my hands as I had forgotten my mitts at home.  The thin pair of full fingered mountain bike gloves I was wearing offered little protection.  I figured I could make it to Mountain Equipment Co-op and warm up in their lobby where I could also pull out a pair of gloves from my backpack.  I hadn't pulled them out earlier because I had discovered that they were both right-handed.

Ta Da! Instant left-handed glove!

With a lot of finagling, which warmed up my fingers, I managed to turn one of the gloves inside out to wear on my left hand.  MEC is used to having bikes in their lobby so I didn't stand out too much.

Crossing a bridge over a ravine, I could feel that my rear tire had gone flat and after pushing the bike to the end of the bridge where a streetlight cast an orange glow, I pulled out the compressed air pump and filled the tire once again.  Within half a block it was flat again and I knew my ride home was pooched.  I could have put the bike on the bike rack of a #1 bus, but I figured that I would still need to walk the bike home from the mall as the 109 bus doesn't have a bike rack.

I also ruined a fine pair of Sugoi bike shoe booties...

An hour and a half from when I started, I pulled back into the parking garage at work and vowed to be more prepared for winter commuting:
1.  Make sure you have all the proper clothing.
2.  If you tires have been going flat - fix them!
3.  Ride the proper bike for each season.
4.  Don't walk for great lengths wearing bike shoe booties

Dang!

Cycle reading

Photo: Ibiketo.ca

As a volunteer at our local library I get first crack at books and audio visual materials that need to be sorted for the next book sale.  The box I have set aside for choice finds is overflowing with cycling books about epic cycling adventures like the fastest cycle around the world or cycling in search of the perfect meal.  My latest find is a book called Smart Cycling and just skimming through a few random pages, I found a simple explanation for setting up a rear derailleur.  Or is that derailler?

To me, winter cycling is more about getting from place A to place B, so I find myself delving into the written word about cycling trips (usually in hot sunny places).  It was with a lot of joy that I strutted back from the mailbox the other day when I discovered curled up in my pigeon hole the latest copy of Adventure Cyclist magazine.  Splashed throughout its pages were colourful photos of cyclists enjoying the fall colours in rural USofA.  I going to do some curling up myself.